


Shrike

by goldheartedsky



Series: That Original Lifeline [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Adam Scott voice: It’s about the yearning, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Booker getting topped both physically and emotionally, Booker has not been handling the past year well, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Bottom Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed Booker, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, M/M, No discussion of feelings we fuck like men, Pre-Canon, Sad Bitch Booker, Set right before the movie opens, Sex as Therapy, Threesome - M/M/M, Top Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, mentions of alcohol overdoses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26946358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheartedsky/pseuds/goldheartedsky
Summary: It’s the same feeling that he had before his execution. The feeling of the rope being tightened around his neck. They had asked if Booker had any last words and it’s too far gone for him to remember what they were. Maybe it was just like this moment and he had been stunned into silence, terrified of what would come after the drop.This, them, Nicky and Joe—this was a far deeper plunge.Booker comes home and finds himself caught between his plan and the men he loves.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Past Booker | Sebastien le Livre/ Booker’s Wife
Series: That Original Lifeline [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2183274
Comments: 46
Kudos: 276





	Shrike

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecaptainjames](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecaptainjames/gifts).



> Write the Booker/Joe/Nicky you want to see into the world, right? Also, feel free to listen to “Shrike” by Hozier to get yourself in the right mindset for this. It’ll give you Big Sad Feelings, I promise.

* * *

_2pm?_

Booker glances down at the message on his phone and shifts further down into the plane’s seat. He’s exhausted, hungry, and crammed into a space that is not meant for anyone over 5’8” and this is the last thing he wants to deal with.

So he shoots back a short,

_yes, will be there_

and tucks himself back into the window.

The message reopens the crack in his sternum that has been there ever since Copley had contacted him six months ago. It has started as an itch—an idea in the back of his head that he couldn’t stop thinking about. A ticker tape playing through every motion he put himself through. It had consumed the rare nights he had found sleep until it wore him thin, like waves against sandstone.

Then, finally, two months after the ex-CIA agent had contacted him, Booker had agreed to the plan.

He had shouldered the weight of what he was going to do along with the rest of the weight that he could never let go of. His wife’s death, the death of his sons, the burying he has done and the longing to be buried alongside them. Andy had said once that she couldn’t remember her mother’s face, nor her sisters; Joe kept worn paintings of his family, created from the derelict, pieced together flashes he had clung to before he had even met Booker; Nicky once said he thinks he can remember his sister, but, when Booker had asked what she was like, he fell silent.

Booker remembered his wife. Remembered his sons. Remembered their faces as clearly as he still drew breath.

His hands shake as he scrubs them over his face. This was going to be the end of him.

One way or another.

~~~

The plane lands two hours later and Booker has never been more grateful for the ability to stand. He hunches over, waiting for his turn to exit the row, and rests his head on his forearm. There’s a baby across the aisle, all wide eyes and fat cheeks and he offers a smile, stomach aching when he gets one in return.

“Do you need help with your bags?” he asks to the woman holding the baby as he steps into the aisle, first in English and again in French when she looks at him blankly. A relieved look washes across the woman’s face and she nods, pointing to a large suitcase in the overhead bin. Booker carries the woman’s suitcase out to the front entrance, along with his own bags, and makes small talk along the way.

Her name is Amira and her one year old daughter is named Faiza. They are returning from visiting family in Istanbul and are grateful for his assistance. She doesn’t ask what his plans are and Booker is almost grateful. How would he be able to say, “Betraying my family?” without letting his mask crack.

He helps them into a taxi before waving goodbye, watching the red lights disappear into the sea of traffic, before he hears, “Always the white knight, aren’t you?”

It’s Joe. He swallows the lump in his throat and lets out a forced laugh and knows it’s Joe before he even turns around. The other man is leaning against an old Fiat Panda, arms crossed over his chest. Joe’s curls and beard are longer than it was when they saw each other a year ago, but his smile is unchanged. Nicky is draped forward over the steering wheel, pale eyes almost glowing from behind the windshield.

“I’m not the knight,” Booker says, hauling his duffle over his shoulder. “That would be your husband.”

A deep, rumbling laugh erupts from Joe as they meet and the older man embraces Booker in a tight hug. Joe smells like expensive Italian cologne and spices and tea—so familiar that he can almost list the ingredients in whatever Nicky has been cooking just from the remnants hanging on Joe’s shirt. Booker struggles to remember how to breathe in the wake of being touched.

“I missed you,” he whispers into the soft curls as Joe spreads fingers across the back of his neck, making him sag wearily.

“We missed you too, Book,” the older man says before pulling away and patting Booker’s bearded cheek gently. “Come on, it’s late and you look like complete shit.”

They pile in the tiny car and Nicky’s eyes are warm as he twists in his seat, arm hanging over to touch Booker’s elbow. “Welcome home, Booker,” he says, accent curling sweetly around his o’s and r’s. “How was your flight?”

“Long. With terrible food and worse leg space,” Booker complains, stretching his feet out across the back seat. “I miss trains.”

“Well, there is warm food back at the hotel and plenty of space for you,” Nicky says, pulling the car out of the airport. The analogue clock on the dashboard reads almost two in the morning and Joe reaches forward to turn the radio up. There’s an Arabic rap song playing and, while Booker’s mind is too tired to translate in the moment, he can hear Joe humming along to it underneath his breath.

“There anything to drink at the hotel too?” he asks, though he knows the answer. There’s always wine—red, like Joe prefers—and whatever Nicky’s liquor of the decade is, but Booker would kill for as big a glass of whiskey as he could get his hands on right now. He can see the hint of a smile on Nicky’s face and groans. “You’re holding out on me, aren’t you?”

Joe’s head rolls across the headrest to look at Nicky. “So impatient, isn’t he?”

“He’s young, Joe, leave him alone.” There’s tenderness under Nicky’s flat tone and it cuts deep into Booker’s heart. This is a mistake. He was so sure of the plan, of Copley’s plan, of the decision he had made months ago. But now. _Now_ …

His hands clench into fists and he hunches further into the seat, letting the silence consume him for the rest of the ride to the hotel.

Joe takes his bags before Booker can argue and he lets them lead in tired silence up the stairs and down the halls. The hotel room is nice—far nicer than many they’ve stayed in—and already shows signs of Joe and Nicky’s settling. Clothes on the floor by the bed. Dishes left on the table. Dog-eared novels and Joe’s sketchbooks abandoned by the couch. They’ve been here a while and Booker can’t bring himself to ask how long.

He drops down in the middle of the seats and rests his head in his hands, time finally catching up with him. His stomach is turning and Booker knows it’s not just from the lack of food. His skin is still crawling from where Joe hugged him and every muscle feels tense and unyielding. The ticker tape is going again. A stopwatch counting down.

“Book?”

His breath catches in his lungs when he looks up to see Joe holding a bowl out for him. The older man is studying him, eyes watchful as ever. Nicky may be the sniper but Joe has always been the one that notices every off movement he makes. Booker watches Joe’s mouth press thin as he hands over the food. He looks into the bowl and his heart drops into his stomach. “Risotto…” he mumbles.

“Your favorite,” Joe points out, settling in the seat next to him and putting his feet up on the coffee table. “Nicky insisted.”

“I also insist on this as well,” Nicky says, coming out of the kitchenette with three frosted glasses and a bottle of bright yellow liquor. “Limoncello, made from our lemon trees back home.” _Home_. Of course that’s where they spent most of the year, Booker thinks as Nicky sets the glasses down on the table. The house just outside of Genoa that they’ve had since the mid 1870’s. Booker’s been a few times but never for long. It reminds him too much of what he’s lost.

But it’s a drink regardless and he downs the glass far faster than he means to. It’s sour and sweet enough to cut through the bite of the alcohol. Booker finishes a second before even beginning to pick at the risotto. “This is good,” he says, mouth half full.

Joe smiles up at Nicky, perched on the couch’s arm. “How you managed to become a great cook having grown up without spices is still a mystery to me, _hayati_.”

Booker stares hard at the bowl, unable to watch as Nicky leans down to capture a kiss from Joe. If anything goes wrong, he knows at least they’ll have each other. There’s no world where Joe would leave Nicky behind, no world where Nicky would allow them to be separated. They can save each other and Andy will always be able to take care of herself and Booker will be gladly left behind.

He downs another glass of limoncello in sickened silence and he feels a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, slow down, otherwise Nicky’s gonna have to peel you off the floor,” Joe says, trying to keep his voice light. But there’s something else. The silent worry that pinches his thick brows together just the slightest.

“I’ve peeled Booker off of worse things than the floor,” Nicky murmurs.

Warmth begins to spread through his chest and his hands—the familiar buzz washing through him as the alcohol begins to take its effect. It takes him a minute to realize he’s clenching his jaw so tight that his teeth are grinding. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he mumbles, hinging his jaw slightly. “I can take care of myself.”

Joe’s fingers dig into the tight muscle between his shoulder joint and his neck and Booker tries so hard not to tense up even further. “You’re _family_ ,” Joe hums. “You don’t have to be alone.”

Then why was I alone? Booker thinks, ribs cracking under the weight of his heart. There had been postcards sent from Antwerp and Sarajevo and Auckland, late night phone calls when the time differences overlapped enough. But there was never an invitation to meet, never a suggestion that he should come to the house in Genoa. The years went by quickly for Joe and Nicky, after enduring almost a thousand, but Booker still felt every one pass. He’s not angry with them, could never be angry with any of them, but part of him wonders if it’s just been so long since there’s been a new immortal that they’ve just forgotten what those early centuries are like.

He continues to pick at his food while the three of them finish off the first bottle of limoncello.

Joe’s grin is getting lazy and Nicky’s talking more than usual, gesticulating with his hands in ways that Booker would gladly make fun of if he wasn’t on the verge of being drunk himself. He’s abandoned the half-eaten risotto in lieu of more alcohol, nursing his glass from the corner of the couch.

His eyes drift to Joe’s hand, curled around Nicky’s knee. Joe has gentle hands—an artist’s hands—hands that were never meant to hold a blade, and right now his thumb is circling a tender spot behind Nicky’s knee. Creeping higher and higher with every passing second and Booker can’t bring himself to look away.

The flush in Nicky’s cheeks grows deeper whether he realizes it or not and Booker’s heart slows to a crawling thud when Joe becomes more emboldened, more needy. His fingers dig into the soft muscle of the top of Nicky’s inner thigh and the younger of the two’s story stutters to a halting stop. His blue eyes are dark, swallowed up by his blown-black pupils as he says, “Not now, Joe.”

The sharp copper tang of blood flows through his teeth as Booker chews a hole into the side of his cheek. It will heal and he will worry it again, over and over until his stomach is full of it and he will have a more ready excuse for the heavy sickness he feels.

“ _Hayati_ , please,” Joe begs, low and wrecked as his other hand finds its home on Nicky’s hip.

It’s too much. Booker turns back to the table, back to his drink, and scrubs a hand over his face. He doesn’t have to watch to know what’s happening. He can hear Joe’s whispers muffled against the warm skin of Nicky’s neck, can hear Nicky murmuring, “Stop, my love,” over and over. Booker has been here long enough—has spent enough time with the two of them—to know how this ends after too much liquor.

He lurches to his feet, catching his toes on the leg of the table as he stumbles toward the kitchen. His stomach turns on him, catching every hook his loneliness has thrown out to sea, as Nicky lets out a soft moan.

He doesn’t hate them, he really doesn’t. He knows what it was like to be inlove, knows what it feels like to be so taken with someone else that you are incomplete without them. But, more intimately, he knows how terrible of a burden it is to want to be touched when you cannot. That, Booker thinks, is what he truly hates.

The dishes rattle in the sink, bottles and cans in the cabinet as he makes a show of being preoccupied. He finds some vodka stashed away, probably for Andy, and makes a mental note to replace it before she gets here as he takes it down and fumbles the cap open. Booker braces a sloppy hand on the counter, swaying where he stands, and finds his gaze drifting again.

Joe, always the lightweight out of the three of them, has manhandled Nicky half into his lap—one leg slotted between his own. The room spins around the central points his hands, one tangled in the hair at the nape of Nicky’s neck and the other trying to work its way up between the shirt’s hem and his lover’s stomach.

Booker’s head goes quiet—nothing but static noise and the soft sounds of the other men’s breathing. He’s not breathing, he can’t be breathing. Maybe he’s forgotten how and this is the end. Maybe he won’t need to go through with this after all. His hands are numb and his legs are numb and all the feeling in his body has sunk into his chest. The ground goes out beneath him as Nicky tilts Joe’s face up to his and meets him in a tender kiss.

The last of his ribs crack open and he can feel the hot, slick spill of melancholia flow from his chest in a single, shuddering breath.

There’s a lump in his throat and the bottle of vodka hangs loose by his side as he watches the kiss deepen, watches Nicky’s hips shift restlessly as he fully straddles Joe. Booker feels all the blood rush from his head, gathering south in a burning expanse of need. It’s been years, decades, centuries since anyone has touched him like that—desired him like that. It feels too raw, too sub rosa for his eyes, but Booker would rather be struck dead than be forced to look away now.

Nicky’s head tilts as Joe forces the kiss deeper and Booker stumbles back a step when he catches the other man’s eyes. Dark and so bright that they manage to reflect any light near him, as if Joe’s eyes were the heavens in search of stars to hang.

His fingers tighten in Nicky’s hair and Joe does not break Booker’s eye contact as he hums intelligible words into the kiss. Nicky pulls away quickly, chest heaving, and his lips are swollen red like ripe fruit. “Booker…” he purrs, soft and sweet and gentle as a prayer, accent lilting around every letter. “Come to us.”

Booker blinks a few times, letting the words settle into the empty expanse of his mind. He shakes his head as the plan replays over and over and over again. Copley. South Sudan. The trap. The experiments. Betrayal. Booker knows they wouldn’t be asking if they knew what he was about to put them through. He shakes his head again and his foot falls back another step. “I can’t,” he chokes.

Joe’s head lolls back on the couch, revealing the long, beautiful line of his throat beneath his beard. His voice is low and warm, smooth and sweet as honey as he slurs, “Nicky wasn’t asking.”

It’s the same feeling that he had before his execution. The feeling of the rope being tightened around his neck. They had asked if Booker had any last words and it’s too far gone for him to remember what they were. Maybe it was just like this moment and he had been stunned into silence, terrified of what would come after the drop.

This, _them_ , Nicky and Joe—this was a far deeper plunge.

His feet move on their own and the undrunk vodka bottle clinks as he sets it on the coffee table. Joe leans forward and latches his mouth below Nicky’s jaw, more open with his want as Booker sinks to the couch next to him. Nicky’s eyelids flutter, eyelashes spreading across the dark skin below, and he grinds down onto Joe’s lap. His hand fumbles for Booker, catching the front of his shirt in his sturdy fingers. Booker wonders if Nicky can feel how badly he’s shaking. How much he doesn’t deserve this.

“ _Libretto_ ,” Nicky moans and the noose tightens at the old nickname. It hasn’t been used in at least a hundred and a half years but now it’s all Booker wants to hear. The blue-green sea of Nicky’s eyes have been swallowed up by the roaring sea inside of him as he repeats himself again, fingertips dipping into the hollow space of Booker’s collarbone. “ _Libretto_ …”

“You can’t want this,” Booker croaks, throat so dry that all of his words sound cracked. You can’t want _me_ , he means and he wonders if Nicky and Joe can hear it.

“You’re really gonna argue with him when he calls you ‘ _libretto_ ’, Booker?” Joe chuckles into Nicky’s skin.

He opens his mouth to protest again when his world lurches, Nicky pulling him into a crushing kiss. Nicky tastes like lemon and sugar and vodka and something underneath that must be Joe, and Booker hasn’t been kissed in so, so long.

He’s heard the stories, about the two of them finally falling for each other after the Crusades, and knows Nicky kissed Joe first. No wonder Joe had put aside every shred of lingering hostility the moment Nicky had kissed him like _this_. Booker’s hands clench at his side, refusing to allow himself the gratification of touching Nicky, but he melts into the kiss either way. His body sags and his mouth opens and his shame rises to flood the back of his throat.

Booker flinches when a hand slides over his thigh, Joe’s voice soft in his ear as he says, “It’s okay to let this happen.”

It’s not though. God, if only Joe knew what was coming. What lengths Booker is prepared to go to find the finality of death. He wouldn’t touch Booker, wouldn’t want Nicky to kiss him, wouldn’t whisper that Booker is allowed to want everything they’re willing to give him. He shakes his head, breaking the kiss with Nicky, and his chest is heaving. “I c-can’t…” he slurs and Joe’s hand slips closer to the crease in his thighs and hips.

His knees spread—heart pounding—as Joe asks, “Are you hard, Booker?”

He worries the hole in his cheek open, blood flooding his mouth, and all he can do is nod.

A wicked smirk spreads across Joe’s face, eyes black as sin, and his fingers dig in to the point of tenderness. “Good,” he says before dragging Nicky back in to a hard kiss, hips rocking impatiently up into his lover’s ass.

All Booker can do is watch desperately, body and heart yearning for something he’ll never have. This is a one time thing. One moment where he’s allowed into their bed, into their bodies and hearts, and then the sun will rise and they will go back to their status quo. He has to make the most of it while he’s granted the grace.

Nicky’s shirt goes first, pulled off and tossed haphazardly to the side of the couch by Joe, revealing the softness of his stomach to the hazy room. Before Booker can even think of reaching fingers out to trace the faint trail of hair below the Italian’s navel, Joe’s hands wrap around Nicky’s hips. His fingers dimple the soft weight of him and Nicky’s gyrations stutter, his head falling forward. “Fuck,” he swears softly, eyebrows furrowing.

“You should see him ride me,” Joe growls, licking his lips like a lion on the prowl. “He’s so beautiful, taking my cock, that it would make you cry.” His head tilts and suddenly Booker is the one caught in his wolfish gaze. “But that’s not what you want, is it?”

Booker’s breath catches, cock throbbing in the confines of his pants. He shakes his head and chokes, “No.”

Maybe he’s a easy man to read and maybe the desperation is pouring off him as thick as it feels, but Joe seems to know exactly what he desires, so deep in his bones it’s become part of Booker’s daily existence. “You want to be fucked, don’t you? You want Nicky to take you apart and fuck you until you forget how to breathe and you want me to watch him do it.” His gaze doesn’t break as Booker flushes crimson and grits his teeth, nodding shakily, and Joe takes that as all the confirmation he needs.

Booker follows their lead, pulled by an invisible thread as Joe and Nicky stumble toward the bed. The last of the alcohol has settled in his system and every step seems like quicksand. Joe’s button-up clatters to the floor and Booker’s numb fingers begin sloppy work on his own shirt.

His footsteps falter when Joe’s pants fall to the ground as well. It’s not like they haven’t seen each other naked more times than not over the last two centuries, but this is different. This time, Joe is staring him down, body radiating with want, and palming the growing bulge in his underwear. “Come here,” he whispers in Arabic, words flowing sweet as honey off his tongue, and Booker has no intention of disobeying his demand.

The bed rocks like a ship out at sea as he sits on it, falling to his back as Joe pushes his shoulder. His fingers feel like a brand on Booker’s skin and it’s only by the grace of their immortality that he knows Joe’s fingerprints haven’t burned themselves over his heart. He swallows around a cotton tongue as he croaks, “Why?”

Why this? Why him? Why _now_?

“You were alone,” Nicky says, fingers running over Booker’s ankle from where he stands at the foot of the bed. “You shouldn’t have been alone.”

Booker stares up at the beam and plaster ceiling, stomach tightening when Joe’s mouth closes over one of his nipples. His chin quivers and imagines himself on a cold exam table instead. “I wish you would have asked me to visit you at the house in Sori,” he says, hands fisting in the sheets to keep from twisting in Joe’s thick curls. “I would have come if you had.”

“We called,” Joe says before sinking his teeth into the soft muscle of his chest. His tongue laves over the marks before they disappear completely. “You seemed happy in Auckland.”

I wasn’t, he wants to say. I was dying in the solitude, I was dying without my family. It’s on the tip of his tongue and it would be so easy for Booker to let it slip past his teeth. Joe and Nicky would understand, he tells himself, would ease him back and patch every empty space in his body with their love. But it’s too late now. The wheels have been set in motion. There’s nothing he can do.

But all he says instead is, “Andy didn’t even call.”

“Andy never calls,” Nicky points out, smoothly shucking his pants off and crawling up on the bed to meet Joe’s mouth.

Nine hundred years. Booker can’t even imagine nine hundred years with someone else. He and Heloise spent fourteen years together before her death and it had seemed like a lifetime, but Joe and Nicky went beyond what he can even imagine. Every move they make together is a practiced dance, one that’s been perfected over almost a millennia. Booker can’t help but feel out of step, out of place, one lap behind them as Joe shifts his weight and easily draws Nicky to his body.

They’re so close to touching him but it feels like a world away. Feels like it’s never going to happen and all of this has just been a tease. The muscles in Booker’s stomach twist, cock throbbing in his underwear, as Joe’s eyes flutter shut, Nicky’s hand working into his waistband. Booker’s mouth goes dry as sandpaper, damn all he’s drunk, and he finally finds the courage to touch Joe’s thigh as the older man’s cockhead is exposed. “F-Fuck…” he breathes.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Nicky hums, thumbing along the dripping slit. “Someday you will feel him fill you, Booker, but not right now. Now, you and I will just enjoy watching him fall apart.”

Joe honest to God whines at Nicky’s touch and shakes his head. “Please, Nicolò,” he pants, hips rocking against both their hands. “I want to come with you. With Sébastien.”

Booker’s nails dig into the tender brown skin and he looks away from the two men. He can’t remember the last time anyone called him Sébastien. Maybe Andy, maybe back in 1833. The one night she offered, the one night he thought of accepting, the one night he almost allowed someone else to shoulder the weight of his loneliness. Tears bite at his eyes and his throat feels tight as Joe moans his name again.

The weight on his chest becomes too much.

“I can’t do this,” he whispers, more to himself than the men he’s trapped between. His voice rattles in its hollowness and Nicky’s eyes are full of worry when he pulls away from Joe. Booker shakes his head, shifts underneath them, and pushes himself up on one elbow. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this.”

Joe’s hand wraps around his wrist, stopping his escape. “Sébastien, wait…”

Booker could just tell them. Could let everything go and let them spill his blood right here on the dark sheets of their hotel bed. Spill it over and over again until hopefully they find a strike of the blade that sticks. Then the terror would be spared for the rest of his family and that would be enough.

But he is a coward and a weak man and says nothing when Nicky bears his body back down to the mattress, kissing him tenderly. Large hands caress his face and the roar in Booker’s head grows to an unbearable cacophony as his pants and underwear slip down over his hips. His eyebrows knit together as Nicky’s tongue slips into his mouth, muffling a gasp at the first touch to his aching cock.

The soft scratch of Joe’s beard on his hip sends a shiver up Booker’s spine, goosebumps prickling his arms at the warmth of the man’s lips on his skin. “I’m gonna put my mouth on you, Sébastien,” Joe hums, heard but not seen, and Nicky only kisses Booker harder. “I’m going to put my mouth on you and get you ready for Nicky, understand?”

“I can’t…” he breathes weakly, with little conviction, into Nicky’s lips.

“You can and you will,” Nicky replies, fisting his hair and forcing Booker to meet his blown-black eyes. A demand, not a request.

Joe nudges his legs apart, settling in the warm space between, as Nicky sits by Booker’s head, fingers still threaded through the blond strands of hair. There’s a darkly contented, barely-there smile on his face as Nicky cups himself through his underwear, watching Joe work his way up the vee of Booker’s thighs.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Nicky whispers, breath hot against his ear. “He wants to please so much that he aches for it, _Libretto_.”

Booker’s eyes tip up to meet the Italian’s before disappearing back into his skull as Joe takes him in his mouth, to the root, in one single swallow. His back arches off the bed, fingers twisting the sheets, and bites the inside of his lip raw to keep from screaming. His breath comes hard and fast through his nose when Joe’s nose brushes the close-cropped curls at the base of his cock, tongue working him over with expertise that only comes from practice.

His feet slip as he tries to brace himself and Booker ends up with one leg over Joe’s shoulder, the older man wrapping a strong arm around his thigh to keep him still. “Peace, Booker,” Nicky purrs, low from the back of his throat. “Just give in to him and he will be so good to you.”

But Booker can’t. He can’t let go, can’t stop from picturing Joe’s face twisting in broken rage, Nicky’s eyes full of betrayal. It’s there, in his head, even as Nicky kisses him again and Joe’s mouth bobs on his cock, even as Booker finally wrenches his hands from the twisted sheets to tangle in Joe’s dark curls. He keens into Nicky’s mouth, whining as he feels Joe’s warm, slick fingers tease between his ass.

He’s no stranger to this; he’s French for fuck’s sake.

But it’s a far cry from the late night fumbling with other men in the military camps over two centuries ago. A far cry from the prostitutes who took him so sweetly the same way Joe is taking him now, in his whirlwind of grief after Heloise’s death.

This is Joe. This is Nicky. This is home.

But Booker still tenses at the first press of Joe’s finger against his hole, feels the sweat pool at his temples in the Moroccan heat. “Please,” he chokes, and it sounds a lot like begging.

Nicky must hear it in his voice because his fingers curl around Booker’s jaw, holding his face so tight that there would be bruises if he could bruise. “Please what?” Nicky growls, sinking his teeth into the bearded skin along the top of his throat. “Tell us what you want.”

Joe’s finger sinks in full, down to the knuckle, and all Booker can sob is, “More.”

He’s a shaking mess by the time Joe has two fingers in him and he is so, so, so close. It’s not even his lust that is driving him anymore. It’s the overwhelming release of having someone touch him, want him, love him, that he’s been deprived of for so long that is controlling his body. The isolation that has plagued him for so long has finally found atonement in the push and pull of Booker’s body between Joe and Nicky.

If he only gets this once, at least let it be like this.

Nicky’s mouth moves against his, open and gasping, swallowing the needy sounds he’s making. He’s shaved, Booker notes, but the other man is stroking his beard like he must do with Joe late at night. Nicky’s thumb traces over the Adam’s apple and Booker wonders if Nicky would curl his thick fingers around his neck even before his betrayal is revealed.

Joe adds a third finger, filling him so perfectly that Booker is left without words. Nicky’s blunt nails scratch along his nipple and he lets out a short chuckle. “Is his mouth too good for you, _Libretto_? Are you really going to fall apart before I even fuck you?” Joe’s cheeks hollow in a particularly wicked swallow and Booker nods, tears clumping his lower lashes. “Did you hear that, Yusuf?” Nicky laughs. “You are going to break him before the fun even begins.”

Booker’s thighs tremble, his balls pulling tight up to his body, as Joe pulls off and curls his fingers right against a spot that sends shockwaves through his body. “I heard him, Nicolò,” Joe croaks, voice wrecked and hoarse. His eyes are burning hot as coals as he looks up, lips swollen and slick with spit. His fingers twist and he moves his fingers faster, tearing apart every seam Booker has kept stitched tight. “Come on, Sébastien, let _go_.”

His vision whites out. His heart stops and his body is consumed by an unbearable fire. Joe closes his mouth over the head of his cock and Booker cannot help but spill onto his sweet poet’s tongue without hesitation.

The room spins and every last piece of self-restraint he has turns to ash as Joe surges up, wrapping his free hand around Nicky’s neck, and pulls his lover into a sloppy, wanton kiss. Their tongues slip together and Booker wonders if Nicky can taste him on Joe’s tongue. Wonders if this is the affirmation he’s being given to want this.

And, God, does Booker _want_ this.

It’s an out of body experience—as if his voice is coming from somewhere not his own—as he begs, “Please… Joe, Nicky, please God…” Joe’s fingers curl again and Booker can’t help but arch off the bed again as they continue to kiss. “Please…”

He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for anymore. All of it. None of it. Whatever they’ll allow him.

Joe’s fingers slip out of his body and Nicky covers the expanse of Booker’s skin with his own. He’s warm and smells of the same Italian cologne that Joe wears, still smells of the limoncello they drank earlier. “No more, Booker,” Nicky whispers, teeth closing around his earlobe. “No more begging. We will take care of you.”

“We’re here now,” Joe echoes, stretching his body out alongside Booker’s. His long fingers trace letters and words—Arabic maybe—along his chest and stomach and Booker tries not to let him feel the sobs that have been building inside him all night. They’re here now but they weren’t here when Booker needed them the most. When he was drinking himself to death over and over again in his shitty hotel room and waking up with the remnant taste of an overdose still fresh in his mouth.

“You weren’t…” Booker breathes, voice breaking off as he feels the blunt head of Nicky’s cock against his hole. “I was alone…”

“We’re here now.” Joe’s eyes are wide, catching the light at the side of the bed, and it’s like staring at the stars in the sky. He leans in and kisses Booker chastely, whispering, “We are here, Sébastien,” as Nicky pushes in.

Every bit of him breaks apart and Booker’s hand flies up to twist in Joe’s curls, mouth dropping open in a silent cry. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. All he knows is how well Nicky fills him up and how easy it is to kiss Joe. It is only now and it is only this and nothing else in the universe matters.

Nicky’s hips shift in the first thrust and Booker feels himself sink deeper into the sea of want. It washes over him, flooding through his ribs and filling his chest. Saltwater bubbles up the back of his throat and the first tear seeps back into his hairline. He’s not drunk enough for this but his body is still drifting, still afloat in everything Joe and Nicky have given him. Booker is aware only of the scratch of Joe’s beard against his as the other man kisses him and the sharp, heavy throb of Nicky’s cock inside him with every slapping thrust. Nothing else.

“Doesn’t he feel wonderful, Sébastien?” Joe purrs against the corner of Booker’s mouth. “There’ll be so much time to show you everything Nicolò can do with his brilliant cock. Everything he can do to you, to me, to both of us.”

There won’t be time, Booker wants to say, not when you find out what I’ve done. But he can’t, he doesn’t, only shakes his head and hooks a calf around Nicky’s lower back. He draws Nicky in closer, gritting his teeth to keep from making noise, and feels another orgasm building in the pit of his stomach. Nicky’s hips snap against his ass, burying his cock deep inside, and the Italian sinks his teeth into the soft muscle of Booker’s shoulder. “ _Bello_ ,” Nicky groans, fumbling a hand down for Joe’s cock as his thrusts pick up speed. “ _Bello, Libretto…_ ”

Booker can feel the wet slide of Joe’s erection against his hip, can feel the drag of Nicky inside him, just glancing off his prostate. The first moan tears from the back of his throat and he can no longer stay silent anymore. He wants this. He wants this so badly it feels like every death he’s ever survived has prepared him for this pain. He fumbles for Joe, for Nicky, for any kind of grip and tangles his fingers in both of their hair. Booker has a better grip on Joe, Nicky’s soft strands sliding through his hand as he pulls away, pinning Booker’s wrist back to the bed.

“Settle,” Joe insists before sliding his tongue into Booker’s mouth. “Settle, Sébastien…”

He loves them.

It hits him like a ton of bricks but he _loves_ them. Not in the way he loves Andy but the way they love each other and it’ll never be enough for this to end here. Booker kisses Joe as he works his hips down to meet Nicky. He’s hard again, aching for release, but wants to see both of these men come apart for him the way he had done earlier.

Joe spills first—into Nicky’s hand and across Booker’s hip—unexpectedly and with a choked gasp into his mouth. He watches the older man’s dark lashes flutter as he hisses a string of broken Arabic and Ligurian into Booker’s jaw, hips hitching up into his lover’s grip weakly.

Booker’s body winds tight like a spring, coiling pleasure through his spine as Nicky drops lower to put more power behind his thrusts. Every snap of his hips pushes Booker further up the bed, punching broken-off gasps from his chest, and Booker is caught in the crossfire of Nicky’s sniper-sharp gaze. “Are you going to be good for us, Booker?” Nicky asks, the drunken slur gone from his voice, leaving only the sweet lilt of his accent. “Are you going to be good for us and come?”

His cock throbs, caught between their bodies, and all Booker can do is nod. All he can do is nod and flex his numb fingers, spreading his pulsing blood back under Nicky’s tight grip. He’s grinding his teeth again, the pain running back through his skull as a broken, “I’m sorry,” falls from his lips. He comes between his stomach and Nicky’s and lets himself break.

It comes in waves, his guilt.

First, when Nicky’s brow twists, jaw clenching as his thrusts falter and he comes inside Booker with a moan. Then again when he watches Joe and Nicky kiss above him, not a care to his crumbling state. It crashes through him once more when Nicky slips out of him, leaving Booker’s body as empty as his soul feels. His heart pounds in his chest and the bed rocks as if he was on a ship. The walls close in and his lungs collapse.

“Booker?”

He’s shaking. He knows he’s shaking. He’s shaking and it’s Joe’s voice calling his name as he fights his way out from underneath them both. Nicky’s hand wraps around his wrist and it feels like a brand, like a warning mark on his skin. “I have to go,” Booker stammers, vision tunneling as he tries to free himself. There are hands on him, on his shoulders and the back of his neck and his hips and is this what it feels like to drown?

He’s dreamed a thousand times of Quynh’s watery grave and this truly feels no different.

“Booker, wait, it’s okay,” Nicky says behind him in that constantly calm voice of his that Booker knows has been perfected to hide his worry.

But it’s no okay. He knows it’s not okay and soon they will too. Booker shakes his head, chest heaving as he begins to hyperventilate. He feels raw, feels used, feels like he’s taken something irreplaceable from both of them. The first sob punches its way through his teeth, clawing up his throat like a rabid animal. “Let m-me go,” he pleads as Joe’s slender fingers comb through his sweaty hair. “I’m so sorry, p-please, just let m-me go.”

Let him go now, before this plan is set into motion. Before Joe and Nicky are torn apart forever.

Joe’s face materializes in front of him, hands on either side of Booker’s jaw. His anxiety cannot be hidden like Nicky’s—it’s written in his dark eyes like an open book. Joe wears his emotions, his wondrous, wild heart, right on his sleeve and now that heart is bleeding just for him. Nicky’s lips press against the tender skin below his ear and Booker can’t take the weight of their love anymore.

“I’ve done something terrible,” he chokes, voice hollow and shaking.

“Booker, whatever it is, we can—”

He stares at the wall, past Joe’s head, and feels a tear cut down his cheek, sharp as a blade. “I’m going to betray you all.”

~~~

The sun is beginning to rise by the time he finishes explaining everything. His head is pounding, a bright sharp headache right behind his eyes, and his hands itch for a drink so badly. Joe has stopped being able to sit and listen, instead pacing back and forth across the room like a caged animal. Nicky just stares straight at him, eyes bloodshot.

“How could you _do_ this to us?” Nicky whispers, voice barely there.

“I’m sorry,” Booker mumbles, scrubbing his sweaty palms over his bare legs. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and underwear and nothing else, unable to stand long enough to put on pants. “I’m so sorry…”

“How could you not tell us that it was getting this bad?” Nicky continues, making him freeze. “How could you keep your grief so hidden that you felt you had to do _this_?”

Booker shakes his head, unable to meet either of their eyes. There is no good explanation for his silence. Nothing he could say now that would make any of it mean a thing. He’s too far gone for salvation now. “I was alone,” he whispers, throat tight. “You two have always had each other. Andy has learned to live with this feeling. I’ve had nothing but the memories of my wife and my sons.”

Joe’s footsteps stop and the room goes quiet. “We didn’t even _see_ it, Nicky…” he grits out, more hurt than angry. “We were right there and we didn’t notice a single thing. This is our fault as much as it’s Booker’s.”

“We need to tell Andy,” Nicky says as Booker’s eyes burn with held-back tears. He can barely face the two of them, how is he going to face Andy? “She will know how to fix this.”

“I’m supposed to meet her at 10,” he croaks, burying his head in his hands. “I can’t face her.”

Nicky’s knees thud on the ground as he sinks to the floor in front of Booker, taking both his wrists in his strong, sturdy hands. “You won’t have to face her alone,” Nicky says gently, eyes earnest as he pushes himself up just enough to meet Booker’s mouth in a tender kiss. “You are with us…”

Booker shudders again, fingers curling around Nicky’s, and he can feel Joe’s warm hand on the back of his neck. “We meant what we said earlier,” Joe whispers, sinking to the bed next to him and filling Booker’s ears with his gentle voice. “We’re here now.”

The sun rises fully through the cracked windows and, for the first time in too long, he no longer has to bear this burden alone. He has Joe and Nicky and finally, finally, Booker can breathe again.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you all enjoyed this! Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated!


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